"In an era when metaphysical and existential certainties are in a state
of crisis, when people are being uprooted and alienated and are losing
their sense of what this world means, this ideology inevitably has a
certain hypnotic charm. To wandering humankind it offers an immediately
available home: all one has to do is accept it, and suddenly everything
becomes clear once more, life takes on new meaning, and all mysteries,
unanswered questions, anxiety, and loneliness vanish. Of course, one
pays dearly for this low-rent home: the price is abdication of one???s
own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of
this ideology is the consignment of reason and conscience to a higher
authority. The principle involved here is that the center of power is
identical with the center of truth."
Vaclav Havel
The Power of the Powerless
Havel points out that the typical error we make is in identifying
authoritarianism as an aberration tied to specific individuals. It has
far deeper and insidious roots
> On 27-Feb-2016, at 9:20 PM, Brian Holmes
> <bhcontinentaldrift {AT} gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We've come full circle. Forget the Californian Ideology, forget the
> Flexible Personality. At issue today is exactly the thing that Adorno
> and his colleages studied in their sociological attempt to understand
> Fascism. What's happening in the US right now, and undoubtedly across
> Europe, is fear, disorientation and authoritarianism. BH
<...>
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